RICK BRANT GOLDEN DRAGON 11

THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN DRAGON or THE SOUTH SEAS CITY OF DEATH MYSTERY

Chapter Eleven: IN THE CAVES OF WAR A stir of excitement crept into Rick
Brant’s blood as they entered the labyrinth of caves on Coastwatchers Hill. The
native boys led the way through a concrete bunker entrance, each holding a
flashlight. Thrilled at the idea of such a marvelous tool, they flashed them
about the cave, darting here to there as quick as lightning.

Jimmy and Scotty followed behind
them with the lanterns and Rick took up the rear, his spine tingling as he
looked around in wonder.

He had parked the jeep in a short
dead end cave a couple dozen yards down the hillside, then they had stolen
through the jungle bush over to this entrance which the native boys claimed led
into the main chambers of the underground.

The floor was soft with ash and it
was dry and spacious within. The flashing light beams exposed the height of the
walls and ceilings, which appeared to be fifteen feet or so. They were, for the
most, shored up by thick wooden beams and the enhancement of the caves by the
Japanese was obviously an engineering marvel. It was much cooler in the caves,
but very dark. Rick wondered how the kanaka boys played inside here without
light.

A moment later his question was
answered.

The older boy, whose name they had
learned was Chtupa, aimed his flashlight beam at the ground and started
chattering expressively.

“Torches!” Rick exclaimed, looking
at the wooden club-like items on the floor next to a bunch of wooden crates
filled with supply items.

“They used them in here during the
occupation,” Jimmy said, after Chtupa had stopped speaking. “The kids use them
now. Everything they need is here – fuel, tar, pitch, wooden matches. Ha!
Instant underground playground!”

“All kids love caves,” Scotty
remarked, holding his lantern high as he peered around. “And it’s roomy in
here. Nice. I wonder if there are bats?”

Jimmy asked the boys the question as
they moved along and the younger boy, Butubu, answered with a waving of his
arms, flashlight beam swirling crazily.

“He says there are a lot of them,”
Jimmy translated. “Hundreds. Thousands. But you don’t see them very often.
There are even big furry ones, like flying foxes. Of those he is afraid.”

Rick shuddered. “I don’t blame him.
We heard about those down in New Caledonia. Let’s hope we don’t run into any!”

The cave floor was well-trod, as if
thousands of men had made their way back and forth across it. Other tunnels led
off here and there, winding away into darkness, Some had stairs cut into them,
leading up and down to different levels. Trash of all kinds was strewn along
the way, individual pieces here and there and crates filled with it stacked
haphazardly along the sides.

“They left quite a mess,” Rick
commented.

Jimmy nodded. “There were over
a hundred thousand men in these caves at the height of the occupation. It’s
staggering to think how they fed them, kept them clean and safe, and doctored
them. Especially when they were so cramped in here for such a long time.”

“It had to be sheer insanity,”
Scotty said. “And they probably weren’t concerned with taking proper care of
anyone.” Then, raising his lantern, he added, “Lookit! We’re coming to a big
cavern now.”

The native boys’ lights showed the
tunnel ending and a large cavern ahead. They quickened their pace and surged
on, Chtupa and Butubu talking in excited animation. Rick realized that the
young boys found no reason to be quiet in the eerie caves.

“This is the main big cave in this
area of the underground,” Jimmy told them as they stepped into it. “It must
have been a command post. The boys say it’s filled with radio equipment and
other electronic equipment, and lots of munitions.”

They found this to be true as they
looked around, aiming the flashlight beams and raising the lanterns. There was
a central area of desks, counters and alcoves filled with radio and other electronics
equipment. Desk drawers were open, some broken and hanging. Chairs were tipped
over and much of the equipment was strewn around. Beyond this area was a galley
with all the usual appliances and rows of tables and chairs, like a cafeteria,
all of it in similar disarray.

“You could seat several hundred
people here,” Scotty said, raising his lantern high. The rows of tables seemed
to go on forever.

Rick shuddered, feeling a chill
creep up his spine. He could feel the ghosts of war all around them. It boggled
his mind that this underground had been teeming with such an astounding number
of men caught up in the most vile of activity during the war and that now, only
a few years later, it was completely empty and devoid of any kind of human
activity. Just a few kids coming in now and then to play, and a crazy old man
who had made it his home.

He drew his lips into a tight line.
“Tell the boys to take us to the madman’s cave.”

Jimmy addressed the boys in their
native tongue and they both responded eagerly with pidgin commands that even
Scotty and Rick could understand as ‘Come this way!’ and ‘Follow me!’

“We have to go carefully now and
watch our step,” Jimmy advised, as they followed the boys to even darker
regions. “They buried explosive mines in some of these caves near the end of
the war in case the enemy crept in. Chtupa says that every now and then someone
steps on one and sets it off, resulting in injury or death.”

“Oh, great!” rapped Scotty with a
sharp voice. “Next they’ll tell us that the place is filled with dinosaurs!”

Scotty’s voice fell to a hissing
whisper. “Don’t worry about me,” he gloated. “I learned how to do a toe dance
in a minefield during the war. It’s you guys who don’t have any experience!”

They moved on into a smaller cave
that led slightly upward. Off of it were many small caves filled with caches of
arms and other munitions, and what looked like aircraft parts and shipping
supplies. There was an infirmary in one cave, completely set up with medical
equipment and supplies, a machine shop in another, and vast areas of sleeping
quarters.

But they didn’t stop long to linger
in these lonely, haunted places. They briefly checked them out and then moved
on, watching their step in the booby-trapped labyrinth. At length they followed
Chtupa and Butubu up a set of stairs cut into the floor of an ascending cave
and they came upon a holding area, a large cavern filled with cells, some made of
wood, others metal bars. The cells loomed on as far as they could see in their
meager light.

“We should have taken torches,”
Scotty grunted. “This place is too big and too weird to have such little light.”

“It’s totally creepy,” Jimmy
muttered, following the young native boys down the rows of cells. “I can’t
imagine being imprisoned in this horrible place!”

“It had to be a nightmare,” Rick
agreed, trying not to peer into the empty cells but unable to control his
curiosity. “This place reeks of death and anguish.”

Scotty made a sympathetic gesture.
“You said it, man. It’s so thick you can cut it with a knife.”

The native boys led them down an
aisle off a row of cells and it brought them into a low-ceilinged cave with
what turned out to be just one cell in it, room-sized and filled with odd
pieces of furniture.

Chtupa had quite a bit to say about
it.

“This is the old Chinese man’s
house,” Jimmy said, following him. “He lives in here and it looks like he’s made it
pretty comfortable.”

They flashed their lights through
the bars into the cell and the glow helped to illuminate it. Inside was a bed
topped with an array of blankets, two desks, a couple chairs, and a chest-like
wardrobe. The iron-barred door was ajar and Rick pulled it open, causing it to
squeal loudly in the intense quiet of the caves.

“He must have dragged all this
furniture in here to have a cozy nook for himself,” Rick mused. His keen eyes
gazed around as they all stepped into the cell. “Not bad considering it’s in the
caves of war inside a mountain on a jungle island!”

“Let’s look for a sign of my dad and
Dr. Warren,” he added.

Scotty opened the wardrobe and saw a
few pieces of ragged clothing hanging over the bar. Below were boxes of
ammunition and ammunition belts, and he eagerly picked them up exclaiming
happily.

Chtupa grabbed him by the arm and
pointed to the wall next to the big chest, saying, “Coocoo man’s shootem guns
belongem him!”

Scotty moved closer to see several
rifles leaning against the wall and three revolvers set on a low bench beside
them.

“All right! Found the guns and ammo,
chums!” he shouted back to the others. “At least now we’ll be armed if those tong
idiots try to come after us.”

Setting his lantern on the floor, he
squatted down and began inspecting the firearms.

There was an oil lamp on one of the
desks and a torch jammed into a holder on the wall. Rick sparked a wooden match
and lighted them both, bathing the cell in light. The place was filled with all
kinds of useless items a madman might gather, including weapons and electronics
parts, journals and books, dishes, bowls, and glasses, and many items that must
have been personal belongings of the soldiers. They were stacked on surfaces,
shoved into overflowing boxes and crates, and leaning against the walls.

“The old guy sure is a packrat,”
Jimmy said, looking through books and journals. “These are all wartime records
in Japanese. Not very interesting reading, that’s for sure.”

“Probably the only kind of books
they allowed in here,” Rick chuckled, pulling open a desk drawer. “I doubt if
the Japs actually supplied their troops with a lending library.”

He looked in all the drawers in one
desk but found nothing of any interest, then hurried over to the other.

“There must be something here
somewhere to give us a clue to the old man’s identity,” he said. “Something to hook him up with Dad and Dr. Warren.”

“No sign of a struggle in here,”
Jimmy was saying. “Of course, hard to really tell, it’s such a mess. If the
tong captured them in here – well, it doesn’t show. They could have come upon
them anywhere in these caves.”

Rick had been looking through the
second old wooden desk but had not found anything but odds and ends office
supplies and pages of correspondences that probably would have proved
interesting to him had they not been in Japanese. He slammed shut the last
drawer and grunted in discouragement when Butubu came over to him. The boy set
his flashlight down on the desktop and said in a very proud and grand manner:

“Watchem dis fella!”

The boy pushed at a piece of the
wooden trim along the bottom of the desk’s top where it overlapped the front,
and a hidden door popped out above the row of drawers, exposing a cavity. The
seam had cleverly been hidden in the scrollwork design in that area and Rick
would never have noticed it without intense scrutiny.

Butubu thrust his hand into the dark
space and pulled out a bright object. Grinning widely with great importance, he
displayed it to Rick in his palm.

The boy chuckled, “Howzabouts, mon?”

Rick gasped. Butubu held in his hand
a small golden dragon similar to the one he had received in the package from
the black schooner at Lateela Island. It shone warmly in the lantern glow and
lights glinted and danced upon it from the flickering torch on the cave wall.

Chtupa saw the golden dragon and
scurried over to his brother, exclaiming in a know-it-all manner to Jimmy about
the sudden appearing object.

“It’s another dragon, Rick!” he
cried, rushing over to look at it as Butubu proudly showed it off. “Chtupa says
it belongs to the old Chinese man. He sometimes shows it to them, but always
makes sure to put it back in the secret compartment afterward.”

Rick took the dragon from the boy’s
hand and turned it over in his. A flush of excitement leaped into his cheeks.
“It’s exactly the same as mine! Do you know what this means, Jimmy? The old
madman has got to be Johnny Fang! Who else would have one of these dragons but
the leader of the tong himself who had been to the lost island and seen the
treasure in person?”

Jimmy stood there with his mouth
agape. “Then it’s true. Oh man, man …. he didn’t die on Palua Pae! Somehow he
survived and got off the island, took one of these dragons with him from the
treasure trove.”

Scotty had risen to his feet to
watch the intense scene unfold. “Johnny Fang went nuts on that island, but got
here to Rabaul somehow and came up to these caves to live. During the war he
hid away in the farthest reaches of them, I’ll bet. But since then he’s taken
over this cell and is not only the madman of Coastwatchers Hill, but also the
king of the whole darn hill, too!”

“And then dad and Dr. Warren came
here to get him, for whatever their reason is,” Rick continued. “And they took
him away with them. Or the tong followed and got them all.”

Rick tossed the golden icon to
Jimmy, who caught it firmly in hand.

“You keep it,” he told him. “It
belongs to your grandfather. Hopefully we’ll be meeting up with him soon.”

Scotty pulled an old shirt from the
wardrobe and began cleaning the guns. “Now if we only had a clue to where they
went from here!”

Rick playfully roughed up Butubu’s
mop of curly hair. “I think this little guy here got that clue for us. This
whole mystery started out with the golden dragon and that’s where it will end,
on that lost island in that big cavern of light beyond the big golden dragon,
the keeper of the treasure of Palua Pae.

“I’m betting everything on it,” he
continued resolutely. “Dad and Dr. Warren and Johnny Fang either went there on
their own or they were abducted by the tong and taken there. We need to get out
to that island quick. And I mean like … tomorrow!”

“Then let’s get going,” Jimmy said,
pocketing the dragon, which had caused an undercurrent of stirring emotion in
him. “We can be in Storms End by morning and out to the island by late
afternoon maybe, or the very next day.”

“You mean if we can get a boat to
take us out there,” Scotty reminded him.

Jimmy grunted. “Puh! Don’t worry,
we’ll get one. We could get a hundred. All I have to do is announce that I know
the way to Palua Pae, and they’ll be lining up begging for the chance!”

Just then, Chtupa grabbed Jimmy by
the leg and let out a frightened whisper, pointing out the cell door down the
aisleway into the large cavern.

Everyone immediately tensed as Jimmy
looked and, with a startled note in his voice, breathed a ragged, “Lights
coming!”

“Oh, cripes,” Scotty groaned. “It’s
gotta be the tong guys … again!”

Rick growled in frustration. “It’s
like having monkeys on our backs!”

They quickly turned off the lanterns
and flashlights but it was impossible to put out the torch without some kind of
extinguisher, and there was no time to look for one now. Several lights could
be seen bobbing their way down toward them.

Two things happened at the same time
in the rush of confusion. First, Scotty threw one of the rifles at Rick who
barely caught it due to the suddenness of the movement.

“Use it,” Scotty rapped, rushing up
to the front bars with a rifle of his own.” These babies are fresh and loaded!”

And, as Rick clambered up to the
front of the cell, the two native boys began jabbering excitedly and pulling at
Jimmy. They literally dragged him over to the wardrobe by the cave’s wall.

“Hey, we can get out of here!” Rick
vaguely heard Jimmy hiss as he and Scotty both pulled the triggers.

Ping!
Ping! Ping! Ping!

The gunfire cracked out in
high-pitched screeches and echoed wildly in the caves like booms of thunder.
The lights ahead, flashlights and torches, fell to the ground. Rick heard
Scotty grunt in satisfaction, then he shot a quick glance behind at Jimmy who
was, along with the boys, pushing aside the wardrobe.

“Rick! Scotty! We can get out of
here. There’s a secret passage to some other caves. Come on!”

Rick had just turned back to look
out toward the big cavern when return fire rained out at them. Bullets pinged
off the cave walls and nipped by in the air, one twanging as it hit an iron bar on
the front of the cell. A wild roar of echoes filled the caves and Scotty
stooped down, firing back.

“They found a secret passageway”,
Scotty hissed over to Rick. “Take that rifle with you and go! I’ll follow up
the rear.”

“I’m not leaving you here alone!”
Rick threw back at him.

Scotty growled. “Get your butt outta
here, buddy, before I beat you over the head with this rifle’s butt!”

“Okay! Okay!”

Rick nerved himself for the effort
of leaving Scotty behind and, clutching the rifle, swooped around to find Jimmy
and the boys gone. There was a gaping dark hole in the wall where the wardrobe
had stood.

Jimmy popped his head out of the
darkness. “Come on, Rick! We got the extra guns and lights. Just get that
lantern there.”

Rick bounded over, picked up the
lantern by its handle, and rushed dead on into the black hole as Jimmy pressed
up against the stone wall to give him room.

“Go on,” he urged to Rick, who could
see the native boys ahead with the flashlights. “I’ll get Scotty.”

He ran on toward the boys with his
senses reeling. A broken cry came to his lips and he wanted to turn around and
go back into the cell and fight whatever enemy was upon them. The truth struck
him hard. He couldn’t bear leaving Scotty behind, facing such danger alone.

He tried to grasp on to saner
thoughts. Scotty was an experienced fighter. He had made it through the war
here in the South Pacific without even being wounded. He’d take care of himself. Meanwhile, these
young boys …

Right. He had to get them out of
here to safety!

Chtupa and Butubu were loaded down
with lights and revolvers. Jimmy had to have the third rifle, and that made Rick
feel a little better. But he could still hear the roar and rumble of gunfire
from back in the cell, and the horror of the situation began to appall him.
They could all be killed in this dark labyrinth of terror, left here to rot and
none of them ever seen again!

“Bosh!” Rick told himself out loud.
“No time for that kind of thinking now!”

In a flash he had stooped down and
struck a match. He lighted the lanterns as the boys cried out and gestured
forward frantically.

“Okay. I know we gotta go. Here,
give me those guns. Each of you take a lantern and a flashlight. We’ll get the
heck outta here, brotha kiddos!”

Somehow they understood him. Rick
jumped back up to his feet, belted the three revolvers. He followed behind the
boys as they ran ahead jabbering excitedly in their native tongue that he
couldn’t understand one word of.

The cave they were in was roomy
enough but it twisted and turned like a coiled snake. It was quiet behind them
now. Rick couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to stop the gunfire. Were
Scotty and Jimmy out of the madman’s cell and on their way in the tunnel? Were
they okay, had they been wounded? Or worse ….?

He steeled himself again not to
think about it and watched the flashlight beams and the lantern glow light up
the cave ahead, wishing he knew where it led to. But if the boys had known
about it, he reasoned, they must have been in it before and would know where it
went. Hopefully outside and, he thought, real quick!

A moment later he could hear running
footsteps coming from behind. He turned and his heart began to hammer in anticipation.
Was it Scotty and Jimmy? Was it … the tong members?

The suspense was killing him. He
followed the boys around another turning and then threw himself against the
wall, rifle aimed in the ready. Chtupa and Butubu, having heard the onrushing
efforts behind, followed suit and pressed back too, aiming their flashlight
beams back the way they had just come, big-eyed fearful expressions on their
young faces.

The next moment, Rick let out a sigh
of relief. Scotty and Jimmy came
crashing around the corner looking like a couple of French Foreign Legion
gangbusters.

“Ah … light!” Scotty cried, eyeing
the flashlights and lantern greedily. “Running in a cave in the dark is not
easy, chums. I ran into the wall so many times I feel like I just went ten
rounds with the World Champ!”

“Are you guys okay?” Rick asked.

Jimmy nodded. “Not a scratch! Just a
lot of bumps from bangin’ in the dark. We staved them off pretty good and were
able to pull the wardrobe back in place. It might take them a few minutes to
find the passage.”

“That must be why the madman chose
that cell to live in,” Scotty said, breathing heavily. “It had a secret way
out.”

“I wonder if they used it when your
dad and his friend came here to see him?” Jimmy said to Rick. “It’s possible
they could have escaped the tong.”

Rick shrugged, relieved to have his
friends back with him. Both okay and in one piece. “I guess we won’t know the
answer to that until we meet up with them. Come on, let’s go!”

Chtupa and Butubu had been nervously
standing by during this exchange and Jimmy, after taking one of their
flashlights, helped them lead the way again down the twists and turns.

“This cave leads to a big cavern,”
Jimmy said after conversing with the boys a couple minutes. “These kids have
been there only once, the day the old man showed them the trolley and gave them
a ride. That cave leads outside nearby where we parked the jeep.”

“Perfect!” Rick cheered. “Great! We
can jump in the jeep and get the heck out of here.”

“The trolleys must’ve been used to
haul stuff in and out of here,” Scotty reasoned. “What a production, building
an underground like this!”

“It was nothing to the Japanese,”
Jimmy said. “Remember, they wanted to take over the whole world. It was utterly
mad, the idea. But digging these caves was part of the plan and served its
purpose.”

They rounded another corner and then
the native boys stopped dead, looking ahead at two branching tunnels and making
cries of consternation.

Jimmy groaned. “They don’t remember
which way to go!”

He questioned them as they all stood
there uncertainly, but the boys could do little more than fidget nervously and groan
in confusion.

Jimmy shrugged as he turned back to
Rick and Scotty. “Sorry, they just don’t remember.”

Rick grunted, He looked back behind
them and then he heard the dread noise he’d been listening for the last few
minutes – angry voices and running footsteps. He moved ahead of the others and
took the flashlight from Chtupa. “Those guys are coming after us. We’ve got to
make a choice. I’ll do it! Let’s take the cave on the left!”

A moment later they were rushing
down the passage, all in a frenzy now, hoping they had chosen the right way and
that the tong hoodlums would take the other way and not catch up with them.

It was like rushing headlong into
some strange surreal nightmare. The flashlight beams zigzagged about like
lightning strikes, the glowing orbs from the lanterns swayed in big circles up
and around the cave walls. Suddenly the grade began to ascend and then turned
into steps cut into the stone, and all five of them were huffing and puffing as
they clambered upward, ears straining to listen for noise from behind.

Chtupa began to wail and grabbed
Jimmy by the arm, a flood of words bursting from him in agonizing distress.

“Darn it!” Jimmy let out. “He
doesn’t remember stairs! The way the madman took them was all flat, he says. No
up and no down!”

Rick felt a sickening sense of
disappointment. His voice hardened as he spoke. “We went the wrong way! Too late now to
turn back. We’ll just have to follow this route and see where it takes us.”

Still in the lead, he reached what
appeared to be a top step and flashed his light ahead to see a vague murkiness.
He stepped tentatively forward, to see if the ground was solid beneath his
feet, and the others crowded up behind him, lanterns and flashlights lighting
up the space before them.

“It must be a really big cavern,”
Scotty whispered as the lights darted about. “You can’t see any walls or
ceiling.”

And then, a roar came from up above
like sudden thunder. A thousand screeching, crying voices descended upon them
accompanied by a beating of wings that struck chills up and down their spines
as they gaped above in horror.

Like a thick cloud falling heavily
from the sky, it was suddenly upon them. Dozens, scores, hundreds of beating
wings, glistening gleaming eyes, open mouths with jagged fang-like teeth, all
harshly profiled in horror by the flickering lights.

Chtupa and Butubu started screaming
and the older boys’ shouts weren’t far from different as they all cowered and
stooped and swung and cried out at the flying menace from the unfathomable
heights of the cavern.

“Bats!” Scotty shouted, flailing at
them with his rifle. “There must be thousands of them!”

“The flying foxes!” Jimmy cried out, trying to protect Chtupa and Butubu
as he himself was being attacked by several of the crazed beasts.

Rick was gasping, half stupefied
from this latest horror. He fell down to one knee and raised his rifle into the
air, claws and beating wings and screeching cries all around him.

“Cower down! I’m shooting!”

He cried it out and let go a barrage
of fire that echoed down upon them like pulsating thunder and caused the
beating of wings and snapping of jaws and banshee cries to increase even more.
The noise only served to frighten the already crazed monster bats.

But they did rise up above the boys a
little in their terror, and Scotty and Jimmy rushed from behind, grabbing Rick
and the younger boys and pulling them on ahead. They ran and stumbled on,
trying to direct the lights and find a way out of this cave from hell without
tripping and falling down.

“Good thinking, Rick,” Scotty
grunted. “That scared them off a bit, those suckers! What a bunch of ugly
customers!”

“Jimmy, you go ahead with the kids,”
Scotty shouted. “Rick and I will shoot up these creepy flying French poodles!”

“They’re a heck of a lot uglier than
that,” Rick snapped, dropping down to a shooting position. He forced a laugh. “And
there ain’t nothin’ French that’s
ugly like these things are!”

Scotty dropped down next to him. “You’re
right! Flying New Guinea poodles,
then. I wish I could shoot every darn one of them down into a nice big pile!”

In unison their rifles cracked
numerous times, the loud reports echoing and reverberating throughout the big
dark cavern. The big bats screeched and cried and beat their way back upward to
the dark depths. Rick and Scotty then swooped around and began running stooped
over toward the lights, now about thirty feet away. They caught up with Jimmy
and the boys as they were running into a smaller cave that branched off ahead
from the murky cavern.

“Whew!” Rick wanted to lean against
the wall for a breather but he didn’t dare stop. “Those hairy things are awful!”

But, fortunately, no one had, and
they hurried on ahead, lights flashing to lead the way. Suddenly from behind,
they heard shouts and yells coming from the big cavern, then gunfire, as if in
a repeat performance of what they had just gone through in there themselves.

“The tong!” Rick exclaimed. “They’re
right behind us. Now it’s their turn with those bats!”

“Come on, let’s vamanoose!” Scotty
commanded, running ahead to take the lead. “Those suckers will be on top of us
in a minute or two. Let’s get …”

Scotty’ mouth dropped open as the
lights began to shine ahead on objects that seemed to be floating in mid-air.

“Hey, slow down, everybody,” he muttered,
barring the way as he grabbed the lantern Chtupa was carrying. “What in the
crazy heck is that up ahead?”

He raised the lantern and stepped
slowly on. The light glinted off of what looked like white sticks suspended
weirdly in the air about twenty feet ahead.

“What are they?” Rick wondered,
following behind and squinting his eyes in an attempt to see better.

“There’s more on the ground, too,”
Jimmy pointed out as the cave broadened on each side. “Piles of them. White
sticks … or tubes … or …”

“Bones!” Rick gasped.

Little Butubu screamed as they all
realized at the same moment what was up ahead, and Chtupa shouted:

“Dem bones! Dem bones! Skelton
fella. Lots much!”

Like a blurry picture suddenly
coming into focus, they could now see the horror this cave was filled with. Skeletons.
Hundreds and hundreds of them as far as the eye could see. They were hanging
from the ceiling in rows and rows with bent broken necks. They were piled on
the ground along the sides in huge rolling mounds.

Astonished, they stopped dead in their
tracks and gaped ahead,

“Oh man, Scotty,” Rick said, feeling
as if he’d just had the breath knocked out of him. “I think we just found all
those prisoners of war that never made it back home to America from the war here
in the South Pacific!”